The ubiquity of high-speed Internet access has paved the way for alternatives to traditional broadcast media (e.g., “over-the-air” broadcast, wired cable television, and satellite broadcast). For instance, to augment or replace broadcast media, consumers can rent, purchase, and/or subscribe to electronic content delivered over the Internet. As conventional broadcast media has generally employed mature technologies capable of providing seamless playback of content, consumers have grown to expect a high level of quality from the content viewing experience. From the content consumer's standpoint, the fact that streaming media is a relatively new technology in comparison to conventional broadcast media is no excuse for poor playback performance, such as playback interruption, rebuffering, and/or video quality degradation.
Networks for delivering streaming content to users over the Internet can be large, complex, and capital intensive to deploy and maintain. In some cases, merchants that offer electronic content over the Internet will enlist the services of a third party network provider. For instance, the merchant may have the proper rights or licenses to sell or rent content while opting to offload the actual content delivery to a third party. These third parties often include content delivery network (or content distribution network) (“CDN”) providers. In these types of arrangements, the merchant may handle the business logic for selling or renting content to a customer while the CDN provider handles the delivery of streaming content to the customer's playback device.
While the system and method for selection and switching of content sources for a streaming content session is described herein by way of example for several embodiments and illustrative drawings, those skilled in the art will recognize that the system and method for selection and switching of content sources for a streaming content session is not limited to the embodiments or drawings described. It should be understood, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit the system and method for selection and switching of content sources for a streaming content session to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the system and method for selection and switching of content sources for a streaming content session as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.